Against wood-grained backgrounds of yellow, blue and green, stylized animals chase one another’s tails from page to page. The fun in “Tails Chasing Tails” is in identifying what’s being pursued from just its hindquarters; when you turn the page, the face and front legs of the creature appear. The exception is the elephant (usually everyone’s favorite) that begins and ends the book. The animals’ uniformly almond-shaped eyes and Matthew Porter’s milky, opaque colors give the simple pictures an Indian inflection.

Two little books by Taro Gomi present different approaches to the peekaboo game. “Peekaboo!” is cleverly designed; each spread opens to show the smiling face of an animal, robot, monster or child. Round holes mark the eyes. If the reader or child holds the book up to his or her face, the book becomes a mask. The accompanying text is simple: on the left side of the spread, Gomi presents a characteristic of the thing pictured (“I like to eat flies”), while on the right, the creature is identified (“I am a frog”). This seems ideal for reading to a very young child, or group of children, who will be excited to chime in on cue, and will enjoy poking their fingers through the book’s holes when they are looking at it on their own.

In “Mommy! Mommy!” two little chicks play hide-and-seek with their mother. But though they find her easily enough on their first two tries, the game becomes more difficult; the shape of the comb on top of the hen’s head turns out to be very like the petals of a flowering tree, the fur of a growling dog, and the rays of the rising sun. After a few mistakes, the three birds are reunited and head back home. There’s a nice balance of predictability and surprise in Gomi’s narrative that should appeal to preschoolers.

In this sweet lift-the-flap book, published previously in Britain, Sebastien Braun depicts calm and curious little children with the round-cheeked look of Waldorf dolls discovering friendly creatures hidden, at least in part, behind watering cans, hutch doors and gates. The illustrator gives just enough of a peek at each animal to prompt children to guess who or what is hiding before the flap is lifted and the answer is revealed. The last page is a show-stopper: two flaps, rather than one, open like stage curtains to reveal a happy toddler sitting inside a playhouse.

With one hand on her hip and the other holding a paintbrush, a little girl with cornrowed hair looks proudly up at a painting she’s made. In Stephen Krensky’s short, rhyming narrative, the girl recalls some of the things she knows: “I know balls can bounce,/ and kites can fly./ I know water is wet,/ and glue will dry.” Sara Gillingham’s colorful pictures, which, with their occasional offsets, look like hand-made prints, show the girl in the process of these and other discoveries: playing outdoors, sledding with friends and standing behind her father at the stove. Her confident assertions remind children, who are so often being taught new facts by books, that they “know a lot” already.

David McPhail’s soft colors and rounded, sketchy drawing style suit the old-fashioned narrative of Bella and her stuffed rabbit, who go through the day together much as a mother and child might. “Bunny bounces on the bed. Bella catches her.” Bunny is more than just a toy; the rabbit seems to be alive, at least in Bella’s imagination. As night falls, the two prepare for bed and fall asleep, hand in paw. This successor to McPhail’s “Ben Loves Bear” is a quiet and comforting book, perfect for reading aloud in the last minutes before turning out the lights and saying goodnight.

Rocket, a little black-and-white dog who learned to read and to write a story in two earlier books in Tad Hills’s series, here encounters the kind of “mighty words” a young pup needs to describe his world. There are words that evoke the seasons (like snow, sun, cloud and pumpkin) and words that just “come in handy” (like some, across, only and after). There’s no story, just adorable pictures of Rocket having fun, surrounded by words (and a few spreads of words amassed as if on a chalkboard, with line drawings illustrating their meanings). Though not much fun to read aloud, this book might help a new reader practice sight words, though most squirmy little puppies would probably prefer to run off and play.

It isn’t just a furry brown sleeping suit that gives Monkey Boy his name. Though he’s definitely human, he has a predilection for sneaking forbidden bedtime bananas, aping in the bathroom mirror and swinging monkey-style from the shower curtain rail. In Jarrett J. Krosoczka’s illustrations, the woman trying to get this little rascal to bed is never fully seen; she’s just an indignant shadow, an accusing index finger and, finally, a gentle palm on the forehead of the smiling, apparently sleeping child. But wait! The fun’s not over; this little monkey has a flashlight — and a banana — hidden under the covers. If monkey business is part of your family’s bedtime routine, this book may give your children the cozy feeling that they are not lone miscreants but part of a tribe. That may reassure the parents of monkeys, too!

A fascination with simple illusion and movement pervades “Pinwheel,” a novelty book that adults as well as children will find mesmerizing. Its die-cut cover opens to reveal scenes of forests, fields, the seabed, a merry-go-round and skies filled with kites, hot-air balloons and fireworks. Turning a wheel on the side of page changes the scene subtly but almost magically: lights seem to flicker, flowers appear to shimmer in the summer sun, and slowly and momentously a carousel horse and a kite rise out of the top of the book and then disappear again between its layers. The short rhymes on the pages are fun to read aloud but extraneous to the primary pleasure offered by this skillfully constructed book.

Little Acorn, lying on the ground, is visited in turn by a mouse, a raccoon, a bird, a rabbit, a boar and a deer. Each asks the acorn what it will be when it grows up. The acorn explains that it will become a great big tree, with a purpose that meets each animal’s needs. (To the boar, the acorn says, “My bark will scratch your back”; to the bird, the acorn vows , “My branches will hold your nest.”) Eventually, the acorn does indeed grow, first from a seedling shooting thin roots into the soil and finally to an enormous, thick-trunked oak that fulfills all its promises. Gibbs’s charming book benefits from his use of varied media. A sprig of felt leaves is attached — firmly — to the cover, and Gibbs outlines acorns and assorted animals in lively, curling black ink against a watercolory background. His expressive line is like a more benign version of the British cartoonist Ronald Searle’s, though there’s a distinctly mischievous glint in the eye of the wild boar.